Our people
Meet the expert team helping take your idea to market
We are innovators ourselves: scientists, academics and industry experts from a wide range of specialisms, which reflect the diversity of UCL’s academic disciplines.
Whatever your specialism at UCL, we have the right person to explore it with you. We build exceptional relationships, grounded in trust and understanding, and use our commercial acumen and skill to get the deal done - and to get it done in the best way.
Our independent Board
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of UCL, we’re able to act completely independently. We have a separate Board, comprising experts who have built successful businesses themselves and understand the worlds of venture capital and academia.
A highly experienced team with a specialist approach
Recruited from diverse backgrounds, our Business Managers bring commercial acumen, technical knowledge and creative problem-solving to really understand your technology, idea or invention and find its best route to market.
We also provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary in-house support from legal, marketing and IP protection to business strategy and project management, ensuring every idea gets the right focus at the right time
Our people
Dr Weng Sie Wong
Senior Business Manager
Dr Wong brings extensive experience of all aspects of university technology transfer activities from strategic IP management to licence negotiations and spinout formation.
As a Senior Business
Manager focusing on the commercialisation of medical technologies, healthcare engineering, medical imaging and AI-enabled healthcare innovations arising from UCL research, she has been involved in the formation of multiple spinouts and acted as a director on various boards.
Prior to joining UCL Ventures, Dr Wong was a senior technology transfer manager at Oxford University’s TTO, Oxford University Innovation, working on a diverse range of both life and physical science projects over a 10-year period.
Weng holds an MBA from Edinburgh University and a PhD in pharmacology from UCL.
Dr. Will Mortimore
Senior Business Manager
Dr Will Mortimore is responsible for fostering UCL’s Physical Sciences IP portfolio into commercial opportunities across a broad range of technologies and sectors, with a key focus on Climate
Tech.
Will joined UCL Ventures from the University of Surrey where he managed technology transfer for the faculty of engineering and physical sciences, leading the creation of several spinouts and commercial opportunities. This has been built upon solid international commercial experience as a business development manager for technical products covering a wide range of industries from aviation to medical devices.
Prior to this, Will held a number of materials development roles from a PhD in fuel cells through to product development and scientific consultancy for the power sector.
Yashita Jha
Legal Counsel
Yashita is a corporate and commercial lawyer qualified to practise in England and Wales (Solicitor) and India (Advocate). She specialises in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity
investments, debt funding and strategic investments.
Before joining UCL Ventures in 2021, she worked with leading Indian law firms in Bangalore advising private equity clients investing in start-ups. She has worked with global investment funds, successful start-ups and multinational corporate houses on transactions across sectors like pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, logistics, e-commerce, healthcare and technology. As Legal Counsel, Corporate, she handles corporate and commercial matters and gives legal advice on spinout companies.